DIAL Support

Does anyone know if it is an open standard and will work with any software? Will we be able to use chromecast software to push youtube and netflix videos? And can we pun the chrome browser? If so, this is going to be huge.

Yes DIAL is an open standard. I'm not sure how the TiVo support will work, but it sounds like each app will have to support it so they may not have a generic app capable of doing simple mirroring like the Chromecast. Although it would be pretty awesome if it did.

DIAL is slightly different in that it uses an already installed app. Chromecast hosts actually download a HTML5 app from a remote location at runtime. I think many of the communication protocols are the same however.

DIAL is slightly different in that it uses an already installed app. Chromecast hosts actually download a HTML5 app from a remote location at runtime. I think many of the communication protocols are the same however.

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Chromecast is just DIAL with a chrome browser as the content player for 100% of the content. The browser downloads the HTML5 app and plays it.

I mean, it's still using DIAL to tell the Chromecast "play youtube" and chromecast is going "Ok, I play youtube with (looks) the chrome browser! I'll get on that! Man, I feel like I play everything with the chrome browser..."

DIAL would just tell the TiVo "play youtube" and the TiVo goes "OK! I play Youtube with the YouTube app! I'll get on that!"

That is how DIAL works. You just tell the device what it is you want to play, and the device figures out how to play it.

Chromecast is just DIAL with a chrome browser as the content player for 100% of the content. The browser downloads the HTML5 app and plays it.

I mean, it's still using DIAL to tell the Chromecast "play youtube" and chromecast is going "Ok, I play youtube with (looks) the chrome browser! I'll get on that! Man, I feel like I play everything with the chrome browser..."

DIAL would just tell the TiVo "play youtube" and the TiVo goes "OK! I play Youtube with the YouTube app! I'll get on that!"

That is how DIAL works. You just tell the device what it is you want to play, and the device figures out how to play it.

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Based on what we've heard it sounds like TiVo does the same thing except it uses a version of Opera instead. But I don't know how the Chrome mirroring thing works with the Chromecast. I'm not sure if it uses standard DIAL protocols or if it's using some proprietary trick of the Chrome browser.

Chromecast is just DIAL with a chrome browser as the content player for 100% of the content. The browser downloads the HTML5 app and plays it.

I mean, it's still using DIAL to tell the Chromecast "play youtube" and chromecast is going "Ok, I play youtube with (looks) the chrome browser! I'll get on that! Man, I feel like I play everything with the chrome browser..."

DIAL would just tell the TiVo "play youtube" and the TiVo goes "OK! I play Youtube with the YouTube app! I'll get on that!"

That is how DIAL works. You just tell the device what it is you want to play, and the device figures out how to play it.

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Yes. I understand how DIAL works. But I think people shouldn't have expectations that Chromecast apps on mobile devices are going to magically cast to a TiVo.

Yes. I understand how DIAL works. But I think people shouldn't have expectations that Chromecast apps on mobile devices are going to magically cast to a TiVo.

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They will, if it's an app that TiVo recognizes and knows where to direct the request to.

I mean, I agree about managing expectations... it's definitely something good for us to do for people who don't get the technologies.

But between you and I... if Dan is right and the reports are right and the tiVo is running an Opera browser and supports HTML5, there is literally no technological reason why the TiVo can't literally run everything that Chromecast runs and likely the only reason TiVo hasn't jumped in to that as a marketing thing is because the Chromecast SDK isn't even done yet.

Yes. I understand how DIAL works. But I think people shouldn't have expectations that Chromecast apps on mobile devices are going to magically cast to a TiVo.

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It really depends on how that generic Chromecasting works. If it actually uses DIAL and not some proprietary extension of Chrome then it might.

However it should support casting of YouTube and Netflix out of the box. Both the apps available on iOS/Android and the TiVo apps will support it, so those should work day 1. The only question is if the generic mirroring available on the Chromecast will work with a TiVo or not. I guess we'll see.

Based on what we've heard it sounds like TiVo does the same thing except it uses a version of Opera instead. But I don't know how the Chrome mirroring thing works with the Chromecast. I'm not sure if it uses standard DIAL protocols or if it's using some proprietary trick of the Chrome browser.

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Yeah, if I were guessing, I think that's proprietary to the chrome browser and not a standard HTML5 thing. I may be wrong, but i wouldn't bet on that feature coming to any other DIAL devices.

But if all the other big dogs start putting together HTML5 apps to support Chromecast, every one of those suddenly becomes a usable thing for a TiVo as well.

And that is a killer app for TiVo. To be able to say "if you can chromecast it, you can DIAL it to a TiVo too." That's compelling.

They will, if it's an app that TiVo recognizes and knows where to direct the request to.

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AFAIK, Google has to whitelist any apps that want to support it. Since the SDK isn't final, they have yet to do that with any apps (other than Youtube, Netflix, and their own Google Play apps). I think in the future you may see Google try to extend Chromecast to televisions and STBs, but for now, I don't believe we will see any Chromecast support on TiVos for the foreseeable future.

The Roamio line supports DIAL out of the box, meaning ANY application that supports DIAL (And has a companion application on the Roamio) will work out of the box with TiVo with no modifications necessary. Netflix and YouTube already work with the Roamio and once Hulu adds DIAL support to their mobile apps, it will likely "Just work" with the TiVo.

The ONLY exception to this rule is "Casting a Chrome Tab", this is something that Google implemented on their own and is not part of the Dial standard. TiVo has suggested that they are open to adding that functionality but are waiting to gauge user demand.

The ONLY exception to this rule is "Casting a Chrome Tab", this is something that Google implemented on their own and is not part of the Dial standard. TiVo has suggested that they are open to adding that functionality but are waiting to gauge user demand.

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It would be cool. However, while the DIAL API is open, I'm guessing actual Chromecast support will require a license agreement with Google. So I would take what TiVo said with a grain of salt.

Plex is pretty cool. I used it recently to watch the last season of Top Gear I downloaded from BitTorrent. Worked pretty good and I didn't have to do any conversion to get them on my TiVo like I usually do.

AFAIK, Google has to whitelist any apps that want to support it. Since the SDK isn't final, they have yet to do that with any apps (other than Youtube, Netflix, and their own Google Play apps). I think in the future you may see Google try to extend Chromecast to televisions and STBs, but for now, I don't believe we will see any Chromecast support on TiVos for the foreseeable future.

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Ok, we're having some several language problems here, and I am not helping things. Let's nail some stuff down, ok?

Chromecast is a device, not a standard or a communication method.

DIAL is the method that chromecast devices use to receive commands to show media.

DIAL is a completed standard, implemented on multiple devices and on multiple apps. I have used DIAL to launch Youtube on other devices.

Chromecast is a device which recieves DIAL commands and directs all of them to the Chrome browser.

Google has released an SDK to make it super easy to send DIAL commands to the Chromecast device. That SDK is not yet final and it is entirely possible (likely? I have not reviewed the sniffed packet data that has since hit the internet) that the Chromecast uses some non-standard DIAL based commands for some of its features. However, none of that would in any way stop TiVo from supporting DIAL for all of the same software that can use DIAL to send commands to a Chromecast.

It would be trivial for, let's say, Pandora, to support TiVo as well as Chromecast for their DIAL protocol, assuming TiVo works by running an Opera Browser. All of the work would be done (The HTML5 interface, the DIAL communications layer, etc) they would just have to correctly sniff the TiVo as a DIAL device and send the correct packets to it.